So I decided to forget all about school running and Miss Pearson's minimal expectations of my sporting competence, & I just picked a route that looked like it might not be too impossible and figured that if it got too bad I could just stop.

Hurrah! That was the way I managed to get into the habit of running: forget the invisible PE teacher in your head, deliberately avoid working out how far you've run or how long it took, just pick a direction and go.

I used to go running for two main reasons: one was mental health, the other was to maintain fitness levels for going clubbing..

(I say "used to" because cycling has pretty much replaced running for me, due to lack of decent places nearby to go running, Juliet dragging me out on crazy Audaxes, and the fact that cycling to my workplace is a lot more pleasant than running would be.)